LA Drinks

Lou Amdur- Lou Wine Shop and Tastings: Things That You Want In Your Mouth

‘Ineffable’ is the word Lou Amdur uses when describing his attraction to wine.  He groups wine with love and friendship as being beyond description in terms of his ardency for them.   When I first met him in the 2000s, I immediately recognized him as a champion of wine, especially wine made from marginalized grapes.  I came to regard him privately as the patron saint of the forgotton grape- probably pineau d’aunis, an obscure grape that he gallantly promotes. Lou’s story of how he found his path in the world of wine is really one of inevitability and of his responding to the stimulations of a life beyond software development, his previous career.  He caught himself at various moments in his life acting like a wine geek.  Eventually he had to admit to himself that he belonged among the bottles.  His new career was also completely self-made.  After deciding that he would start a Paris-style wine bar in L. A., he saved for 5 years until he had enough capital to be able to get underway with no partners or family members pitching in.   The place was unique. Garrisoned in the crook of a misbegotton mini-mall on the edge of Hollywood, one entered into a warm modernist dining room with well-sourced, good food and reliably unique wines by the glass.   The attenuated arc of the restaurant was caused by a bad landlord and the untenable condition of his building.  It had been open for seven years. After a brief stop barnstorming his new retail wine concept next to Squirl Restaurant, he moved up the street to Los Feliz and the permanent home of Lou Wine and Tastings.  It is here that a wine vision is being realized with the rapid comings and goings of hundreds of highly unique wines and a discourse that includes considerations of history, gastronomy and community emanating forth from Lou. There is no doubt that Lou’s shop provides the most arcane and stimulating wines in Los Angeles.  If there is a half-hectare vineyard of a recently rediscovered ancient grape clinging to the side of a mountain in the French Alps, you can be sure that you will get to try its wine at the shop.   The wines he stocks are also noteworthy for their purity and their ‘natural’ constituency, meaning that most fall squarely into the niche market that has become known as ‘natural wine’.  Though a definition of ‘natural wine’ is debatable with some versions tasting more like cider than wine and other versions simply having detestable qualities, Lou will fight you if you aquaint his business with other purveyors of skitchy natural wine.  The winemakers that he deals with are masters of their craft and their wines rely on traditional winemaking, meaning from organic grapes, without chemical inputs, introduced yeast or new oak flavors. Ironically, whereas Lou was looking forward to a career as a wine obscurantist, he now also finds himself handing out newly-popular pet-nat in volume to an eager public.       Lou lost a comrade in arms when Jonathan Gold died.  They had known each other and while Gold instructed Lou on eating in L.A., Lou, no doubt, supplemented Gold’s considerable knowledge of wine with his own.  Like Gold did, Lou uses his influence and knowledge in an effort toward a better understanding of his city through the sharing and promotion of things that you’d want to put in your mouth. Notes: a.o.c. opened in 2003- I really should have remembered this Kris Yenbamroong is the chef/owner of Night+Market in Los Angeles and Venice.

Adam Weisblatt of Last Word Hospitality- Big Plans For Small Venues Pt. 2

We continue our conversation with Adam Weisblatt, who is a  principle in Last Word Hospitality, a consulting firm with a healthy list of high-profile restaurant clients.    In 2015, at the tender age of 30, Adam teamed with Holly Fox, formerly a project manager at entertainment group SBE.  Since then, the two have helped consult on all aspects of the successful launching and running of restaurants, bars and other businesses.  This means soup to nuts: from establishing occupancy all the way to the by-the-glass wine list.  But their ambitions extend much further.  In 2016, they entered into a management agreement with a faded Thai restaurant, Rambutan in Silver Lake.  Their work included a rebrand as Same Same Thai, a new look, a new beverage program and radically improved sales.  Next was Found Oyster in East Hollywood, a smart take on an east-coast oyster bar which has been up and running since November 2019.  So far, it has exceeded business expectations and is a worthy visit (this is a personal recommendation).  And there are aggressive plans for more restaurants according to a template that Adam shares with us.   To top it off, Last Word runs an ‘academy’ a few days a month in L.A. and San Francisco in the form of workshops devoted to providing the tools to future managers and operators in the restaurant/bar industry.  Both ‘soft’ skills such as personnel management strategies and ‘hard’ skills such as negociating a lease might be subjects of instruction.  Adam states that there is no true intellectual property in hospitality. LWH is seeking to broaden this program to compete with college-level hospitality curriculums one imagines.  Adam’s advice to those aspiring to entrepreneurship:  go learn how the business works as an employee and when you are ready to take the next step to management or ownership, take advantage of their instruction, which for the time being, is free.   In the second part lf our interview with Adam, we move specifically toward the beverage program: how it is assembled and its specific role in the success of a hospitality business.  Then Adam outlines his vision for the ‘academy’ and we talk about future plans that synergize consulting, education and upcoming LWH hospitality ventures.

Adam Weisblatt of Last Word Hospitality- Big Plans For Small Venues Pt. 1

Today, while seeking out more beverage truths about Los Angeles, we take a slight detour to the subject of creating success in an eating and drinking establishment.  And we ask about the unique role that a beverage program has in this undertaking.  Our guest is Adam Weisblatt, a principle in Last Word Hospitality, a consulting firm with a healthy list of high-profile restaurant clients.    In 2015, at the tender age of 30, Adam teamed with Holly Fox, formerly a project manager at entertainment group SBE.  Since then, the two have helped consult on all aspects of the successful launching and running of restaurants, bars and other businesses.  This means soup to nuts: from establishing occupancy all the way to the by-the-glass wine list.  But their ambitions extend much further.  In 2016, they entered into a management agreement with a faded Thai restaurant, Rambutan in Silver Lake.  Their work included a rebrand as Same Same Thai, a new look, a new beverage program and radically improved sales.  Next was Found Oyster in East Hollywood, a smart take on an east-coast oyster bar which has been up and running since November 2019.  So far, it has exceeded business expectations and is a worthy visit (this is a personal recommendation).  And there are aggressive plans for more restaurants according to a template that Adam shares with us.   To top it off, Last Word runs an ‘academy’ a few days a month in L.A. and San Francisco in the form of workshops devoted to providing the tools to future managers and operators in the restaurant/bar industry.  Both ‘soft’ skills such as personnel management strategies and ‘hard’ skills such as negociating a lease might be subjects of instruction.  Adam states that there is no true intellectual property in hospitality.  LWH is seeking to broaden this program to compete with college-level hospitality curriculums one imagines.   Adam’s advice to those aspiring to entrepreneurship:  go learn how the business works as an employee and when you are ready to take the next step to management or ownership, take advantage of their instruction, which for the time being, is free.  In the first part of a two part interview, Adam recounts his journey in hospitality from the Boston area to Los Angeles and beyond.  The challenging restaurant/bar environment in Los Angeles, we learn, requires that, from the the first step, that operators must know their staffing and how their people inhabit their workplace efficiently.  Because of a recent legal redefinition of the ‘tip pool’ in Los Angeles, allowing the distribution of tips beyond the front-of-the house, creative ways of staffing can now allow a more equitable distribution of the total staff monies coming in.  With creativity, it can come down to fewer staff sharing the salary budget and tips. This allows for retention of a talented front-of-house while improving financial conditions among the cooks.   Adam states, that In creating an establishment, LWH also looks for a built-in advantage from the start regarding occupancy, labor and cost of goods.  This can save an establishment if things don’t go ideally and a re-concept is necessary.  We touch on other factors of Adam’s consulting work such as creating ‘cohesive and timeless’ brands that easily convey a concept and why LWH is committed to small ‘specialty’ projects.

Caroline Styne- Hospitality is "A Codependent Need to Please People"

Caroline Styne is a successful restaurateur and a partner in the Lucques Group.  She and her partner, Suzanne Goin, are also responsible for the first self-conscious ‘small plates’ restaurant in Los Angeles, a.o.c., which began a trend that is still going strong today.  In doing so, she also initiated a vast by-the-glass wine program that not only provided many options to diners eating an unusual variety of things for dinner, she also made sure that those wines were really good and often quite different than what was around in 2003 when a.o.c. opened with 50 wines by the glass.  The quality, diversity and number of wines that suddenly became available at an exciting and unique restaurant made a large impression on the Los Angeles restaurant culture.  But if we look around us presently, it’s hard to overstate the undeniable effect of a.o.c. on many of our favorite restaurants now almost twenty years on.  Range of artisanal wines on the list? check.  Generous by-the-glass menu? check.  Small plate dishes of various influences? check.  Casual but informed and efficiant service? check. As the eating public became more food and drink literate in the beginning of the 21st century, Caroline’s restaurants were a good fit and her instincts as to what L. A. was ready for in terms of wine were also spot-on.  More recently, The Lucques Group has expanded its landmark brand of hospitality to providing food and beverage for the Hollywood Bowl.  On the horizon are several new projects for the new downtown L. A. Proper Hotel complex.   Note: At one point in the interview, I state that most wine makers in California do not make estate wine.  This may not be true and I should have specified that I meant that most small (less than 5000 case) artisanal winemakers in California do not make estate wine.

Patrick Comiskey- Words and Wine

Patrick Comiskey should be well-known to those who read the Los Angeles Times or who seek out writing about wine.  He has been a regular fixture with the Times and, more recently, with the wine and spirits blog 750 Daily with many articles advising about smart wine drinking as well as various aspects of the Los Angeles wine world such as the legacy of Piero Selvaggio of the recently-closed Valentino restaurant or a story about L A wine tasting groups going back to the 60’s and the future important figures in L A wine who were members. Perhaps more importantly, Patrick has been an editor at Wine and Spirits Magazine and has written for a more deeply wine-savvy readership.  In our talk, Patrick gives an insight into how the W & S editorial board chooses its subject matter. Patrick also wrote a book on the past and present of Rhone grape varietals in The U S titled, “American Rhone: How Maverick Winemakers Changed the Way Americans Drink” (U. of California Press).  Sounds nerdy, but if you have ever wondered where that Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Viognier, Rousanne, etc. came from, there’s an entertaining and compelling story that Mr. Comiskey offers up.  Patrick’s experience as a sommelier in San Francisco in the early 90’s gave him a first-hand knowledge of many of these wines and their creators. Today, grape varietals from the Rhone have been bursting out in availaility and various styles.  They are also a forward-looking class of varietal and blended wines which, for the forseeable future, may respond well to our changing climate. In our discussion, Patrick’s formidable insight into American Rhone grapes is always slightly under the surface of the various other topics that we touch on, including the various styles of wine that presently coexist in our market, recent trends in wine marketing, thoughts on wine journalism and more.  Hopefully this interview will encourage listeners to seek out Patrick’s nuanced and engaging writing and his byline wherever it may be found.  When at the end of our talk, Patrick refers glowingly to his neighborhood,  it is Village Green in Los Angeles.   In this conversation, I glowingly mention the producer Scar of the Sea.  At the same time I was tasting Scar of the Sea wines, I was also tasting owner Mikey Guigni’s wife, Gina Guigni’s Lady of the Sunshine wines. They were equally excellent and worth seeking out.